girls' school kept by a famous
Quaker, Anthony Benezet, where there were gathered the daughters of many
"first" families of the vicinity, and it was there that the intimacy
began between Sally and her life-long friend Deborah Norris, who too was
a Quaker girl. The group of girls with whom Sally and "Debby" Norris
were intimate were all between fourteen and sixteen years old, and
formed a "Social Circle" which was very exclusive indeed, but to which a
few boys were occasionally admitted. The boys, however, seem to have
made themselves disliked, perhaps by teasing, after the manner of boys
of to-day, for in the summer of 1776 while the girls were all at their
summer homes, one of them wrote to Sally, in the quaint old-fashioned
way, making use of many capital letters, "I shall be glad when we get
together again; us Girls, I mean, for as to the Boys, I fancy we must
Give them up. Willingly I shall, nor have I the most distant desire of
being with them again. I think we pass our time more agreeably without
than with them." A clear declaration of independence, that--but it was
modified later as letters to Sally show, and one feels glad that such a
firm stand in an unworthy cause was open to amendment!

At noon on a hot sunny day in 1776, Monday the eighth of July, Sally and
Debby Norris were sitting in the cool shade of the big maples in the
garden of Debby's home, which adjoined the State House. For a while they
sewed and chatted and teased one another as girls will, then Sally held
up a silencing finger, "Shhh!" she whispered. "That is surely a drum and
fife."

Debby, who was listening too, nodded, "I remember now I heard Mr.
Hancock tell Mother that the Declaration of Independence was to be
proclaimed in public from the State House at noon to-day. Come, perhaps
we can hear some of it."

Sally was already half way across the lawn; Debby followed and they
climbed from a wheel-barrow up to the top of a wall looking down at the
State House yard, and had a fine view of the whole scene. Only a
small-sized crowd of citizens was there, for the most conservative
Philadelphians purposely did not go to hear it read, while those members
of Congress whom the girls could see, looked anxious and ill at ease.
Silently Sally and Debby listened while John Nixon read the mighty
phrases of the Declaration and, only half understanding what they
heard, they joined in the burst of applause following the last words,
"And for the support of t